7.3
Table Of Contents
- Life Cycle Extensibility
- Contents
- Life Cycle Extensibility
- Machine Extensibility Overview
- Extending Machine Lifecycles By Using vRealize Orchestrator
- Configuring Workflow Subscriptions to Extend vRealize Automation
- Event Topics Provided With vRealize Automation
- Workflow Subscriptions and Event Broker Terminology
- Blockable and Replyable Event Topics
- Best Practices for Creating vRealize Orchestrator Workflows for Workflow Subscriptions
- Workflow Subscription Settings
- Working with Provisioning and Life Cycle Workflow Subscriptions
- Configuring vRealize Orchestrator Workflows for Provisioning and Life Cycle Workflows
- Workflow Subscription Life Cycle State Definitions
- Configuring the Timeout Values for States and Events
- Configuring the Error Behavior for States and Events
- Scenario: Take a Post-Provisioning Snapshot of a Virtual Machine
- Working with Approval Workflow Subscriptions
- Troubleshooting Workflow Subscriptions
- Troubleshooting vRealize Orchestrator Workflows That Do Not Start
- Troubleshooting Provisioning Requests That Take Too Much Time
- Troubleshooting a vRealize Orchestrator Workflow That Does Not Run for an Approval Request
- Troubleshooting a Rejected Approval Request That Should Be Approved
- Troubleshooting a Rejected Approval Request
- Extending Machine Life Cycles By Using vRealize Automation Designer
- Extending Machine Life Cycles By Using vRealize Automation Designer Checklist
- Installing and Configuring vRealize Automation Designer
- Customizing IaaS Workflows By Using vRealize Automation Designer
- Workflows and Distributed Execution Management
- CloudUtil Command Reference
- vRealize Automation Workflow Activity Reference
- Index
What to do next
To test the workow subscription, request a virtual machine in the service catalog. After the request
indicates successful provisioning, verify that the snapshot was created.
Working with Approval Workflow Subscriptions
You create pre-approval and post-approval workow subscriptions so that you can send an approval
request to an external system for processing. The response, approved or rejected, is then processed by
vRealize Automation.
Approval Service Integration
You create a pre-approval or post-approval workow subscription that runs a custom vRealize Orchestrator
workow that processes the approval request in a system outside of vRealize Automation.
In an approval policy approval level, you can select Use event subscription as the approver. This level can
be one of several in an approval policy. When a service catalog user requests an item to which an approval
policy is applied that includes the Use event subscription approver, the approval service sends a message to
the event broker service with the following results.
n
If you have a published workow subscription with matching criteria, vRealize Orchestrator runs your
approve or reject workow.
n
If you have a published workow subscription, but the criteria do not match, you unpublished the
workow subscription, or you do not have a published subscription, the approval level is approved and
the approval process goes to the next approval level.
The approval workow subscription receives messages from the approval service and compares the
messages to the congured criteria for approval subscriptions. When it nds a message that matches the
criteria, the selected vRealize Orchestrator workow starts to run. The published event data is passed to the
workow as input and processed in the method specied in the workow. The results of the workow are
returned to vRealize Automation and the request is processed. If approved, the next approval level is
evaluated. If rejected, the request is rejected. If the approval service does not receive a reply within 24 hours,
the default timeout for the approval service, the request is processed as rejected.
Configuring vRealize Orchestrator Workflows for Approval Event Topics
You must congure your custom vRealize Orchestrator workow to support the approval message and to
reply with correctly formaed information that vRealize Automation can process.
Approval Event Topic Schema
The pre-approval and post-approval event message schema includes the eld names and values, the
information included in the request, and information about the source of the request.
The following is the structure of the event data payload.
{
fieldNames : Properties, // Property names
fieldValues : Properties, // Property values
// Information about the request
requestInfo : {
requestRef : STRING, // Identifier for the source request
itemName : STRING, // Name of the requested item
itemDescription : STRING, // Description of the requested item
reason : STRING, // Justification provided by the user specifying why the
request is required
Chapter 1 Life Cycle Extensibility
VMware, Inc. 37